“It is one of the most prevalent problems for the modern man; the whole of humanity is suffering from uprootedness. When you become aware of it, you will always feel [a] wavering in the legs, uncertainty, because the legs are really the roots of man. Through his legs man is rooted in the earth.” ~ Osho
I can blame it on ballet, on dance training giving me a high in-step but to a keen eye you will see I push the earth away as a permanent stance. That my high in-step is in fact a somatic expression of pulling away from the earth.
Emilie Conrad (Continuum) was the first to notice it in me, a clear diagnosis of a hi-tonus state of pushing away established in my intra-uterine development, a ” behaviourial shape” as Stanley Keleman (Emotional Anatomy) would say. Under the guidance of Therese Melville, (Eutony) it was in the Repousser session that I discovered I was not able to force absorb in order to then push away… Why? Because I was already in a state of pushing away!
Understanding my body biography and the challenges and gifts it presents directly, is already an evolution to self-acceptance, inviting a softening into my frozen aspects, my habitual tendencies as well as my fluidity and organic learnings.
Take a moment now to be still and notice any areas of your body that are on hold, or overtly upright or squeezed. Is your breath on hold? Are you holding yourself slightly out of the chair you’re sitting on or off the mattress or pillow you are apparently resting upon?
It’s possible some of you may notice one thing or another with interest and curiosity but it’s also highly likely that you won’t feel much at all. That which is so familiar, so ‘natural’ to us is pretty hard to detect. So how in a day to day presentation with ourselves do we start to increase our awareness of our body biography and self-manage a tendency to pull up and away from the earth?
Practice moment to moment:
Allowing myself to unclench my knees, bum muscles and belly and perpetually self-invite a dropping in and down to feel my weight being received through my pelvis, legs and feet and ultimately through the earth / ground coming up to meet me.
Practice every morning:
Connecting to the Earth Heart. Consider for a moment the Earth. That’s right, the giant rock under your feet that we rarely think about or take time to understand how we relate to it, or how without it we wouldn’t exist.
Standing with your feet 6-8″ apart, unlock your knees and close your eyes. Place your hands down by your sides with your palms facing the floor.
Move your awareness to the centre of the Earth, the molten core, the fluid energy centre. Can you get a sense or imagine shifting your gaze from the surface of the earth, down through its layers, moving with gravity to its most centrifugal point. Stay with the centre, the heat, the colour, the shape, the movement, the life and energy present at the earth’s core. At its most central point feel the density of pressure that then pushes back out to enforce the planet’s periphery – the centripetal force that provides you with the sure footed experience you take for granted as you pound the pavement each day. Just an awareness of the life and energy beneath your feet can aide a new reference point in your way of meeting the ground as you walk. Getting a feel for the facts can change single handedly our most conditioned unexamined responses into deep awareness of how much unnecessary tension we use as we go about our business. An invitation to let go.
Next – Breathe in through your nose, breathe in the earth’s life energy from the core up through the layers of the earth and into your feet, up through your legs, pelvis and up into your heart. With practice perhaps you will be able to breath the energy all the way up and through and out of the top of the head. As you exhale through the mouth, release any remaining clenching or tension present in your tummy, bottom and legs and notice any downward drop you experience.
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Repeat this breath adding a visual image of white smoke or electricity moving through you as you breath in and up through your body and follow the very same imagery on the exhale as it descends back down through your head, heart, belly, legs, feet, earth.
Continue to breathe in and out in this way for 3 minutes.
Pranayama Practice:
Shallow, squeezed or sympathetic accessory breathing increases the feelings of being uprooted. The breath must go to the very root of your being, just like to the centre of the earth. Practice long slow deep breathing using an “S” breath or hissing breath. Inhale through the nose, followed by the hissing sound through the teeth as you exhale. Feel the polarity of the centrifugal and centripetal forces at play from your navel and diaphragm as you breathe in to your current optimal endpoint and breathe out in the same way. Breathe like this for 3 minutes.
Practice each day Shifting Your Weight:
Stand on your feet, just 6 to 8” apart, and close your eyes. Then put your whole weight on the right foot, as if you are standing only on the right but with the left leg relaxed in contact with the floor but unburdened. Feel it, and then shift to the left foot. Your whole weight is on the left foot and you relieve the right foot completely, as if it has nothing to do. It is just there on the earth but it has no weight to it.
Do this 4 to 5 times – feeling this shift of energy – and feel how it feels.
Then try to be just in the middle, neither on the left nor the right, or on both. Just in the middle – no emphasis, fifty-fifty. That 50-50 feeling will give you more rootedness in the earth.
Practice walking or running barefoot or with barefoot shoes!
If you are near the sea, every morning go to the beach and run on the sand. If you are near the sea, run anywhere barefoot – no shoes on, just on the naked earth so there is a contact between your feet and the earth. Within a few weeks you will start feeling a great energy and strength in your legs.
Connecting to the pranic energy of mother earth, is to allow our most immediate and ever present grounding ally to actually serve us.
Recycling your energy with earth energy is a perpetual life support. Both allowing Apaana release and pranic flow. Self-regulating your optimal state mentally, emotionally, physically and soulfully as much as you are willing to receive.
Beyond daily self practices is acknowledging any long term structural holding that is inhibiting your contact with the ground. Our body biography will need some extra help to dis-organise or organise your structures so that you are able to feel, sense and self-manage within a more expansive, multi-dimensional reality. Working with Somatic body workers and movement therapists will revolutionise your relationship to Self and develop your capacity for your own Self-Embodiment Training.
With BodyMind Blessings,
Sally x
